More Mexicans seek asylum in U.S. as drug violence rises

A Texas lawyer is among those trying to broaden the definition of asylum, dismaying conservative critics and some Mexican officials.

EL PASO — One of his clients, a Mexican waitress and widowed mother of three, says she played dead under a pile of bodies to survive a massacre in Ciudad Juarez led by men she recognized as federal police.

Another client says Chihuahua state police hacked off his feet after he refused to pay them bribes.

They came to El Paso seeking Carlos Spector, 58, a burly, hard-charging immigration attorney who has developed a strange specialty in this Texas border city. His clients, instead of crossing into the United States illegally and hiding out, are seeking asylum.

To the dismay of conservative critics in the U.S. who call asylum seekers "narco refugees" and some officials in Mexico who call them "traitors," Spector has been trying to broaden the definition of asylum, a status granted to those fleeing persecution in their home countries. He calls them "exiles."

Compared with those fleeing other countries, relatively few Mexicans have been granted asylum. Still, the number of applications has risen rapidly and reflects, Spector says, the collapse of order in parts of Mexico.

Typical of his clients is Gabriela, 39, who was working as a secretary at the police department in the border town of Guadalupe in 2008 when she and her colleagues started receiving death threats. Some threats — possibly by drug cartels, but Gabriela was never sure — were carried out.

"They started killing them, one by one," she said.

Gabriela, who asked to be identified only by first name to protect her family, fled in 2010 with her husband and daughters, ages 17 and 9.

"If I go back, they'll kill me. And not just me, my family," she said.

Some of Spector's clients have been threatened on the streets of El Paso. So has Spector. The son of an American father and Mexican mother from Guadalupe, he is hard to miss with his red hair and beard.

Last year, a red SUV pulled up alongside Spector's car in front of what serves as his office, a mint green house in a working-class neighborhood. The man behind the wheel, all in black, leaned over his female passenger and pointed a gun at Spector.

"You've taken enough cases," he said in Spanish. The woman grinned.

Spector, a barrel-chested Air Force veteran who grew up in El Paso and spent years organizing illegal immigrant workers in Texas, was not deterred. He and his staff are juggling about 50 political asylum cases and taking on more, mostly from Chihuahua state.

Violence escalated in the Chihuahua's largest city, Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, after the Mexican government sent in troops to combat drug cartels in 2008.

As cartel violence increased in Mexico, so did requests for asylum. Such requests can basically be made in two ways, and the method often reflects the resources and circumstances of the applicant.

Some applicants seek asylum "affirmatively," meaning they already have entered the United States, sometimes with a border crossing card, and then approach U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Last fiscal year, 4,042 Mexicans sought asylum this way, more than triple the number of applications five years earlier. During the same period, the agency approval rate increased slightly — to 9% from 7%.

People may also seek asylum "defensively." A defensive claim is made when a person seeks asylum at a port of entry — such as a bridge or airport — or if the person is picked up for entering the country illegally and faces proceedings in immigration court. In the last fiscal year, 6,133 Mexicans sought asylum defensively, up from 4,510 the year before, according to U.S. Justice Department figures.

Experts say this method is more adversarial because the asylum seeker is often fighting in immigration court hoping to avoid deportation.

In fiscal years 2007 through 2011, U.S. immigration courts received 21,104 defensive asylum claims from Mexicans. During the same time period, 2% of such Mexican asylum applications were granted. By contrast, out of all U.S. asylum applicants during the same period, about 24% were granted.

Among the top 25 nationalities granted asylum, Chinese often top the list. Last fiscal year, Mexicans ranked 23rd — the first time they made the list in five years.

U.S. officials say Mexican asylum applicants are reviewed like any others.

Timothy Counts, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that each asylum applicant must show "credible fear," defined as "a well-founded fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion."

Decades ago, political asylum was seen as "something for people fleeing wars: Guatemala, El Salvador, Chile," Spector said. For Mexicans, he said, it was tough to make a case and easier "to just come and stay with your cousins."